


Heed Your Own Warning

by Nyxierose



Series: our possibility days [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Non-Graphic Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 11:34:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3172722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxierose/pseuds/Nyxierose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a mistake, she tells herself... but if that's true, then her emotions have some explaining to do. (Or, the first time Abby does something for herself in a very long time.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heed Your Own Warning

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Bloodrush" by Brooke Fraser.

This is a bad idea. This is a _very_ bad idea, and completely unlike anything she would normally do, but maybe that's the point. Abby Griffin is nearly forty-six, about to get promoted to head of the ER at the hospital she's worked at since she got her degree, widowed as of nearly two years ago, and the confused mother of an eighteen-year-old. Her life is damningly mundane and routine. It's high time she changed that.

Now, how needing a little variety lead to _this_ , she's not totally sure. Which, perhaps, is _exactly_ how that happened.

She picks up the occasional substitute job at the college, has for years because one of her late husband's old friends is the head of the business program and somehow that plus her general respected-ness means that if one of the nursing professors gets the flu or something, she's high on the list of potential backups. It's comparatively low-stress - nursing students are _nothing_ compared to the bullshit she deals with at the hospital - and honestly, she likes it. Couple of days a semester, bit of extra money, what's not to love?

Right - the asshole who makes her want to walk away from everything. (Also the person who is currently tracing little spirals on her abdomen. Yes, they're one and the same. The world is weird like that.)

In fairness, the first time she set eyes on him was the day he hit her car in the faculty parking lot. And in hindsight, that was probably inevitable because he drives a goddamn tank. Well, okay, not _technically_ a tank, but one of those big boxy SUVs that probably didn't get modified that much when it got okayed for civilian purchase after the military found shinier toys. One of _those_. Abby, in contrast, has spent her adult life as the owner of a series of sensible midsize sedans in various shades of beige. Completely mundane, but at least _visible_ if people bothered to use their damn rearview mirrors. Which this idiot didn't. Cue a practically destroyed rear bumper that she is _very_ thankful his insurance payed for, a series of apologies, and a small war.

This last bit, she's not sure how it happened, but at some point in the three years since she met him, Marcus Kane has become the most obnoxious irritating person in her life. Not that it was all that much of a challenge, but still. Without fail, every time she's at the college, he finds some reason to get in her way. He teaches fucking _government_ , he has no reason to be anywhere near the nursing building (she checked and confirmed that he's exiled to one of the big humanities buildings that is not an easy walk from her normal territory), and yet he inevitably is. Or else he's in the parking lot and she's worried that this time his abysmal driving is actually going to get her killed (there have been a few near-misses and she almost wonders how he has a damn license). Or he's in the office building, which she inevitably braves because there's a wonderfully functional set of vending machines on the third floor. Circumstances vary; his tendency to pick fights with her does not.

(She really, _really_ should not be doing this. Anyone would be better than him.)

In hindsight, he probably didn't know that those occasional jobs were somehow the one reliable bit of quiet she got, the one space completely removed from a dying husband and a complicated teenage daughter. He probably didn't know she _had_ either of those things. Almost no one did until Jake died and then somehow, even though she wasn't technically official faculty or anything, that community took care of her. They knew her by then, knew her enough that there were casseroles in her freezer for almost six months and floral arrangements and… somehow, somehow, light came out of darkness. Her friends from the hospital helped too, organized, did things that only people who saw a tragedy coming can do. And how did she thank any of them? She shut off completely.

(This is her new beginning, behind a locked door, bodies pulsing. She will feel this for hours, maybe days even. Warmth, wetness, weight, want.)

Nothing changed. Everything changed. She went back to the hospital three days after the funeral and pretended everything was fine. She cried in her bathroom late at night. She barely talked to her daughter. She barely talked to anyone. She was _fine_.

(A sharp intake of breath as he shifts slightly behind her, digging his fingers into her hips to make this more comfortable for both of them. He nips at the back of her neck, just high enough that she'll have a hell of a time trying to cover it up. Or maybe she won't bother. She's more than allowed to bear signs of affection, even if the explanation is as odd as this one will be.)

Six months ago, he noticed. Six months ago, he stopped being such a dick. Six months ago, she must've screwed up her eye makeup or something because he told her, point-blank yet without any real judgment, that she looked like hell. She wanted to hit him, but somehow she held back, instead just nodded. "I feel worse."

(One of his hands slips up to cup her breast, tracing little patterns again. She's almost annoyed that she can't see his face, the happy vacant look she's almost sure is blossoming in his eyes, but when she kissed him fifteen minutes ago he said he didn't feel right about pinning her to a wall. As if a desk is _really_ that much better.)

He toned it down. Still messed with her, but there was a different weight to it now. She started watching him, wondering, and dammit, _wanting_. As she tells herself almost constantly, she's not dead yet. She knew this was plausible. Maybe not consciously, but she knew. She knew, months before it happened, that this was exactly where they were headed.

So back to the present moment, back to want and hope and collisions. Everything is angled just so, the pressure is perfect, and when it all washes over her, she closes her eyes and breathes. _God_ it's been a long time (getting herself off, while useful, does not count in the grand scheme of things). She's vaguely aware of him crossing that edge, right behind her in more ways than one, but it doesn't matter. She's wanted to do this, or something like it, for too long. Bad idea, maybe, but still satisfying.

As soon as their bodies are separated, he gives her space to turn towards him and then kisses her. Soft, sweet, everything they definitely _aren't_. She likes that.

"So where do we go from here?" she asks, stepping away and beginning to dress.

"Does it matter?" he counters.

She rolls her eyes as she re-fastens her bra. "Yeah. It matters. Maybe this is normal for you, but it's not for me and…"

"Can you just calm down for a damn second?"

"I am calm," she hisses. "I am _completely_ calm, whereas you…"

"We made a mistake. Is that what you want to hear?"

"Depends. Do you mean it?"

She has never seen him this quiet for this long. By the time his mouth opens again, they're both fully clothed and, if not as presentable as they were half an hour ago, at least not visibly sex-hazed. It's honestly rather amazing, the fact that actual minutes go by without them at each other's throats, and yet…

"No."

For a moment, she swears she's hearing things, but alright, his lips definitely did move and that definitely did just happen. Maybe that's what freaks her out the most about this, the fact that it could be the beginning of something… god, she doesn't dare use words like "permanent" anymore no matter how satisfying they sound in her head, but at least something _real_.

"Well then."

"Is that really all you're going to say?"

"I'm being realistic. You won't call me, I won't call you, we'll pretend it never happened, and when it happens _again_ in a few weeks or months, the cycle will repeat. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"Don't know yet."

"You're the least indecisive person I know," she hisses. "You know damn well. You just won't tell me."

"But what would be the point?"

It's a good thing he's hot, she can't help thinking. "I don't know, maybe because communication is something functional people do? Oh, right. You're not functional. Forgot that."

Before he can come up with some sort of defense, she turns and walks right out the unlocked door. She doesn't stop moving until she's safely in her car, doesn't think of the incident for days. It was a mistake. She is not that kind of person. She is turning forty-six in six weeks and so fucking help her, now is no time for a midlife crisis…


End file.
